The speed of genetic improvement in livestock is one of the modern miracles of agriculture. The systems, which involve farmers, farmer-driven groups and researchers, have shown that great leaps in productivity improvement can be created, but the systems can pivot when needs change. I grew up fascinated by making genetic improvement recommendations on my family’s […] Read more
Tag Archives editorial — page 5
Editorial: New dairy genetic direction will have multiple benefits
Editorial: Stop worrying about off-farm income
Supplementing farm income some way is now the normal practice
It’s that time the agriculture stops worrying about off-farm income. The amount of income earned in a farming family but not made from the farm operation has been discussed often for decades. The main reason we know about off-farm income is it is measured and reported by Statistics Canada. With about 98 per cent of […] Read more
Editorial: 2020’s losses and gains
I’m not big on end of year summaries, but with 2020 a year whose end will be celebrated (albeit not with crowds of people), it’s worth looking at what we’ve learned, what we’ve lost and what we’ve gained. This will be a year that historians and average people will look back on for the next […] Read more
Editorial: New technology showing up in COVID vaccines
mRNA vaccines could be more effective and efficient
Humans can be incredibly innovative, but it often takes a crisis to make that happen. There are technologies or simply process changes that people know about but haven’t had the impetus to implement, whether because of human or technological barriers. A good example is the mRNA vaccines which quickly have become the leading candidates for […] Read more
Editorial: When good policy is foiled by bad additions
Biodiversity provisions are unworkable in clean fuel standards
The increase in demand for biofuels coming from the federal government’s Clean Fuel Standard should be a cause for celebration for farmers, but there’s concerning fine print in the regulations. It can be argued that ethanol policy over the past 20 years has been the most successful farm support program in history. It created a […] Read more
Editorial: Empathy can be a superpower
There was a discussion in mid-August on Twitter among people in the agriculture sector about empathy. It was fascinating and instructive and shows that agriculture, as I’ve often argued, is as diverse in its views as is the rest of society. Empathy is the ability to understand what someone else is experiencing both in concrete […] Read more
Editorial: Living in 2020’s tornado alley
We didn’t know we would be in one of Ontario’s tornado alleys when we moved a short 10-minute drive south of our previous home more than a decade ago. But two tornados within seven kilometres of our farm in the past three months has my family more vigilant during hot and sultry days when a […] Read more
Editorial: Seeds of mystery
There’s been much made of the arrival in the mailboxes of Canadians and Americans of mystery plant material and seeds from China and other countries in that region. There are numerous reasons that this is an intriguing story and made a splash across all the major media shortly after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) […] Read more
Editorial: Business lessons from Massey Ferguson
I have to admit to an inordinate amount of joy at the prospect of watching the launch event for the new Massey Ferguson 8S. The event was broadcast around the world once, which meant many different times of the day and night. The website where you signed up had a stream of different times for […] Read more
Editorial: Internet access needs to be rural development priority
The time at home because of COVID-19 has laid bare the deficiency of rural internet. In a world where we all needed good connectivity, many didn’t have it. Those who had it found it slowed down, according to OpenMedia, an internet watch organization. Rural internet has slowed down since the pandemic hit, compared to urban […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
